About Alex

Alex J. Pollock provides thought and policy leadership on financial issues, including the understanding of financial systems, cycles of boom and bust, financial crises, risk and uncertainty, central banking and the politics of finance.

Alex joined R Street from the American Enterprise Institute, where he was a resident fellow. Prior to that, he was president and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago.

Pollock also serves as a director of the CME Group, a director of Ascendium Education Group, and a director and past-chairman of the Great Books Foundation. He was formerly president of the International Union for Housing Finance and a member of the Advisory Board of the Heller College of Business at Roosevelt University.

He is the author of Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity (2011) and Finance and Philosophy: Why We’re Always Surprised (2018).

Alex received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Williams College, a master’s in philosophy from the University of Chicago and a master’s of public administration in international affairs from Princeton University.